But I wasn’t really thinking of myself. I was thinking of the loveliness of Karen Sinclair, the broad who was willing to give her life for a purpose. Now they had her... and I knew why. To break her out meant a trade... the microfilm for her, and even then it was a rotten deal because once they had their information back, she would go under a gun too. And what they wanted was in the possession of a crazy junkie who wouldn’t know the time of day when I found him. If I found him.
Chapter 5
A couple of years ago a Fed team had me picked up. It wasn’t a pinch, though I would have been better off if it were. It was a cute pressure play because they wanted my peculiar services at their command since it was the only way they could handle a project. They laid my neck on the line and I had no choice about it so I played cop with them and came out of the deal a hood-type patriot and it took a long time to wash the smell of the association out of my system. My kind of people didn’t go along with any kind of cops, even a recruited hood.
Now the time for returning favors was back again. The card in my wallet was worn at the edges and a few odds and ends were scribbled across the face, but the number was still legible and I called it. Somebody was always at that office night and day and I wasn’t worried about getting an answer at this hour. The phone was lifted and a voice said, “Varlie Imports, what can I do for you?”
“Try remembering me for a starter,” I said.
“Yes?” The voice was puzzled.
“The name is Ryan... the Irish one as you used to call me.”
“One moment, please.” Sound diminished as he held a hand over mouthpiece and I could barely hear the hum of voices. Then the hand was taken away and the voice that spoke to me was a different one, but one I remembered well.
There was nothing friendly there. It was cold and impersonal and said, “What do you want, Ryan?”
“To see you, Shaffer. You’re picking up a tab for me.”
“Ryan...”
“Uh-uh. I’ll do the talking. I’m in a pay station and you can’t trace the call in time so don’t bother. Just go to the corner of Eighth Avenue and Forty-Fifth Street and start walking north on the west side. When I’m sure you’re alone I’ll contact you. Twenty minutes, that’s all you have.” I hung up and grinned to myself. Cliff Shaffer would be there, all right. He knew what the picture was well enough.
I knew he’d make a try for a pinch anyway so I had a friend of mine who had an independent cab out in front of the car he had stationed near the corner and block its way. Before Shaffer went fifty feet I was behind him, steered him into the hotel lobby on the corner and angled to the east-west street and started him walking. I didn’t have to use the gun. Shaffer never did trust me all the way and wasn’t taking any chances. When he knew I had caught the play in time, he shrugged it off and played the game. He hadn’t bothered wearing a rod either.
Two blocks over was an all night diner and we had coffee and sandwiches sent back to our table and I looked at him sitting there, still the same, case hardened cop he had always been, a little grayer now with a few more wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, but a guy who headed up a tight little agency assigned to special high-priority projects only.
He looked at me just as carefully and said, “You haven’t changed much, Irish.”
“I’m still alive.”
“For how long? There’s a city wide alert on you. Or maybe Big Step will reach you first.”
“You left out some tourist types, old buddy.”
The hand bringing the match to his cigarette stopped in midair. “You know too much, Ryan.”
“No... not quite enough. I want to stay alive and you, friend, are going to help out.”
“Like hell. What you did before doesn’t carry any weight now. You’re just another hood to me and if I can nail you for the city boys it’ll be my pleasure.” He glared at me and finished lighting his butt.
“Let’s put Karen Sinclair in this,” I said. “Let’s not make me out an idiot. I didn’t get asked in, I was forced in by one of your people again and I’m tired of being a pawn.”
Softly, he said, “Where do you get your information from, Irish?”
“I was a college boy once, remember? I was a war hero. I’m clever.”
“You’re a damned hood.”
“So I like it this way. I can chisel the chiselers and don’t have to pay any respect to the phony politicos who run us into the ground for their own egotistical satisfaction. I don’t have to go along with the sheep who cry and bleat about the way things are and can do something about it in my own way. If this was 1776 I’d be a revolutionary and tax collectors would be fair game. I could drop the enemies trying to destroy us and be a wheel. So screw it, I’m not going to be a sheep.”
His icy gray eyes ran over my face and his smile was almost deadly. “Let’s talk about Karen Sinclair.”
“And oceanography?” I needled him. “Or would a strip of microfilm be better, one that locates all the underwater missile pads the Soviets laid off our coastline?”
With feigned calmness Shaffer folded his hands together and leaned forward on the table. “I didn’t think it was possible. I didn’t think coincidence could be so damn acute. We all wondered and tried to put it together and nothing would fit.”
“The ones who tailed her put it together fast enough.”
He ignored me completely, following his own train of thought. “So you’re the one she passed it on to. She was able to say that much but couldn’t make a positive identification. We knew but we weren’t sure. We didn’t think it could have happened like that.”
“Who are they, Shaffer?”
“Where is it, Irish?”
“Who are they?” I repeated.
Shaffer let his smile stretch across his mouth, tight and nasty. “Manos Dekker. He’s the head of the thing we labeled the Freddie Project in Argentina, the one who killed Carlos Amega in Madrid and behind the sabotage in our installations in Viet Nam.”
“Now he’s here,” I stated.
“I’m going to tell you a story, Irish.”
“Go ahead.”
“They spotted our people supposedly engaged in simple coastwise oceanography. They used a limpet and blew the Fairway II apart, but they didn’t get the motor launch in time. Karen Sinclair and Tim Reese got away with the charts they had made and Tim microfilmed them in Miami. They got him there too, but by then Karen had the film strips but couldn’t deliver because they were right behind her. Somehow she made New York. It didn’t do her much good because they have their agents all over and covered all routes and were waiting for her to show up. Luckily, she spotted them and took the big chance. Unluckily, it had to be you. Now where is it?”
“Get me off the hook and maybe you’ll find out.”
Gently, he unlaced his fingers and shook out another cigarette. “What?”
“I know where it is. I might be able to recover it. I can’t do it with the cops on my neck. I can’t fight a murder charge and the Stipettos at the same time.”
“Sorry, Irish.”
“In that case, so am I. You’ll lose an agent and all she worked for.”
“Damn it, Irish...”
“Just do it,” I said, “I don’t care how. You guys have the power so make things move. You did it once before when I didn’t want it, so do it now when I do or I’ll resurrect that deal all over again and blow it wide open in the papers.”